Halloween treats

I am such a sucker for Halloween marketing. Christmas too, but we're not quite there yet. Anyway, if it's black and orange I can't control my feet - they just walk me right on over to take a peek. Hubby's (legitimate) complaints that our holiday decorations are taking over our small storage closet have become an inner voice, which is probably for the better, and I haven't splurged on anything yet this year. Just a tiny bit of festive consumerism - I couldn't pass by the Halloween sprinkles at Williams-Sonoma.

I didn't even have any baking planned, or really anyone to pass off a bunch of baked goods to. Keeping them all in our house is just too dangerous. :)

I did, however, have a sugar pumpkin sitting around from our apple picking trip, and with a quick bit of internet browsing I found a cupcake recipe to let Kirah help me with. This one comes from the My Kitchen Addiction blog.

I'm not a big frosting fan. Not even a huge fan of sweets, really. But if it has 'pumpkin' in the name I'm sold, and these cupcakes are insane. I actually had to go and get a pumpkin spice latté from Starbucks to drink with one because I swear they taste exactly the same. Plus the pumpkin gives the cake the most wonderful fluffy texture that was almost enough to make me eat every last one before I sent Hubs off to work with them.


Don't they look....errr... well, at least KINDA cute?

I just made a few changes to the recipe. I made a simple vanilla cream cheese frosting instead of the one suggested, and I made my own pumpkin purée rather than using canned. If you haven't made your own before please give it a try! It is so much brighter and fresher tasting than the canned kind (which I hear is made from butternut squash and not pumpkin anyway), and it's nice to have some around to add to pancakes or yogurt or oatmeal or... anything else you can think of!

Pumpkin Purée

No ingredient list for this recipe - you'll just need one good looking sugar pumpkin! You can also do this with any variety of squash - just adjust the cooking time for the size.

Preheat oven to 425°F. Cut pumpkin in half, lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and pulp with a spoon (save the seeds for roasting if you're up for it!). Place both halves cut-side down on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, depending on the size of your pumpkin. When it is soft and the flesh comes away easily from the skin, it's done. Scoop all of the flesh out into a food processor and blend until very smooth.

To get a canned-like consistency you can strain it with a paper towel or cheesecloth lined sieve, but I just leave it as is.